How You Can Travel To Space—Now

Want to broaden your travel horizons? Book a trip with one of these companies, which promise to take you to space—yes, really.

World View

After a successful test jaunt in June, World View is now booking flights aboard its spacecraft, the Voyager. These sleek capsules ascend to roughly 100,000 feet above the Earth's surface, giving you stellar views of the stratosphere for two hours before the balloon starts to deflate and the pilot releases it.

But never fear: the Voyager's "ParaWing" takes over from there, and passengers come back down to Earth between five and six hours after takeoff.

Price: Starting at $75,000 per passenger.

Virgin Galactic

After a few days of prep work, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic ships rocket you and your fellow "aspiring astronauts" into space at almost four times the speed of sound.

Once the planned altitude is reached (up to 360,000 feet in the air), passengers are free to somersault around the cabin.

Price: $250,000 per passenger.

Space Adventures

Space Adventure Ltd. has been on the radar since 2001, when it made Dennis Tito the first-ever private space explorer as part of its Orbital Spaceflight program—up to 12 days at more than 1,050,000 feet above Earth.

These days, Space Adventures has added suborbital flights to its offerings. It might not be like hitching a ride aboard a space station, but passengers still ascend to about 10 times above altitude of a boring old plane ride.